Blizzard’s fantasy Magic: The Gathering-like card game, Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, was released on iPad on April 2nd and, against my better judgment, I decided to give the free-to-play game a try.

Surprisingly, I’ve had a great time with Hearthstone so far and this is something I really didn’t expect to be writing when I initially booted up the game on my iPad Mini.

Hearthstone was first released in a closed-beta on desktops earlier this year and then a full version followed close after. Although I didn’t play the PC version of the game, just glancing at screenshots made it seem obvious Blizzard had touchscreen devices like the iPhone and iPad in mind when creating Hearthstone.

The game’s touch controls work perfectly on my iPad, allowing me to pinpoint my attacks and card selections with ease.

My first few hours with Hearthstone involved me being repeatedly destroyed by both AI and human opponents alike. What makes Hearthstone different from most video games is even while losing, I was still having fun. Each failure taught me a new strategy or approach to the game. For example, while playing as a Mage I learned hanging onto high mana costing fireball spell cards until closer to the end of a match was a good strategy in certain situations.

The Fireball spell saved me on a variety of occasions in Hearthstone. Handout/Blizzard

Hearthstone is a simplified version of Magic, a popular fantasy card game I’ve always watched fondly from a distance but never have really been able to grasp. There were a few months where I tried to play Magic in high school, but I always found the game far too intimidating and complicated to really get into.

With Hearthstone things are much simpler. Your character class has a health score and so do the minion cards you play. Your ultimate goal is to bring your opponents 30 point score to zero. This means sometimes you’ll be on the offensive, dividing your resources between taking out your opponents’ minions and lowering their overall health.

In other situations you’ll be on full defense, concentrating your minions, spells and other cards on eliminating the growing number of enemy minions amassing in front of your cards. Knowing what to attack and when, as well as managing your mana points, is key to success in Hearthstone. It takes quite awhile to get the hang of everything but once I finally did, I got an immense sense of satisfaction every time one of my carefully plotted out strategies was actually successful (although this rarely happens).

Different Hero classes, unlocked by defeating that particular character class online, have various abilities. The Mage, my personal favourite class, can attack any enemy, taking off one single point of health, by using two mana. You’d be surprised how often this ability comes in handy, especially when trying to divide your opponents limited mana resources. Another class, Druid, has the ability to summon an endless supply of level 1/1 minions. Choosing which class works for you all depends on your deck and play style.

Online matchmaking in Hearthstone works pretty well usually. The loading screen is also hilarious. Screenshot

While I mostly stuck to using the stock Mage deck (I’m still a Hearthstone noob) I did create a custom deck of my own with the help of an online guide (some people consider this cheating). This particular build used all free cards but I added a few rare cards I unlocked through daily challenges. This improved my deck drastically and resulted in about a 40-50 per cent win ratio in most ranked matches.

Completing daily challenges that usually involve winning a specific number of games with a certain Hero class, awards you with points that can then be used to purchase new card decks. Since this is a free-to-play game you can also purchase decks and prices are $2.99 for two packs, $9.99 for seven packs, $19.99 for 15 packs and $49.99 for 40 packs.

What’s surprising about the game is you don’t actually need to purchase any card packs to be successful, at least when ranking up through earlier levels. I imagine as your opponents’ skill level increases having carefully crafted custom decks filled with rare cards is a must in order to win matches.

One of the rare occasions where I actually won a match. Screenshot

A great tip for players new to Hearthstone is to stay far away from the casual playlist – I entered a few matches and was absolutely destroyed. High level players seem to use the casual list to test out their decks, which isn’t good for people new to the game. Playing ranked matches you up against players of a similar skill level and for the first few ranks it doesn’t matter if you lose because your overall level can’t decrease.

Unfortunately there’s no offline mode in Hearthstone and you even need an internet connection to practice against AI opponents. A single-player expansion is set to be released at some point this summer but it’s unclear if it will be playable offline.

I probably enjoyed Hearthstone so much because I’ve never played a game like it before, which made the experience feel fresh and new. I didn’t expect to enjoy a fantasy card game based on the Warcraft universe, but here I am, telling my friends this is a game they need to try. Hearthstone makes the idea of a competitive fantasy card game accessible, especially for people who don’t have a ton of time on their hands, and this is a huge accomplishment on the part of the game’s developer Blizzard Entertainment.

Give Hearthstone a try, even if you’re a little turned off by the whole card game thing – you might end up very surprised by what it has to offer.

What card should I play first? Screenshot

Heathstone: Heroes of Warcraft was released on iOS platforms on April 2, 2014 as a free-to-play game and is also available on Mac and PC.